Oh, The Things That You See ...

I try to find humor whenever I can.  Often, that results in sightings (or soundings, I suppose) that I unfortunately forget about sometimes.

Luckily, though, I do manage to capture photographic evidence at times of things in real life that just crack me up.  I figured I'd share some of those pics (and explanations) because ... well, laughter is a valuable commodity.

Enjoy :-)

What about if you're just medium?

I had never seen an extensive array of port-o-potties on a flatbed truck before.  For some reason, it just about killed me ...

 My brother Adam was hiking with my nephew when they came across a crushed empty of a can of beer called a "Natty Daddy".  Needless to say, the name itself had us nearly peeing ourselves.  Adam, being the amazing brother that he is, bought me one (it took quite a bit of searching, though ... and our review is that it tastes like water with a moonshine aftertaste--not that either one of us has ever had moonshine; you could just sort of tell ;-p)

One of my old friends texted me this pic from the San Diego Zoo ... it took me a minute to find what was so funny about it, but we've since decided that the new expression should be "hung like a zebra".

 This is a horrible pic (taken when I was at a stoplight), but there is a red arrow denoting no left turn (which any licensed driver in the U.S. should be able to figure out) ... and apparently that wasn't enough, as there's also a sign saying, "No turn on red arrow".  It made me wonder, are people seriously that stupid that they need a sign to emphasize a common knowledge driving law?

 Henry and I went to a dive bar.  There was a giant hot dog statue.  Enough said ...

 Another one that's hard to see, but we were leaving a restaurant parking lot, and there was a random guy sacked out on a bean bag chair in the woods ("woods" being a relative term, as this is a rather urban area for old New Hampshire).  For some reason, it cracked us up.

 I got an e-mail on my iPhone that read: "CONGRATULATIONS!  Someone may have run a background check on you."  Maybe it's just me, but I don't necessarily see that as something to be congratulated upon ...

 I call this "The Robomney House" as it's a single residence with an equal number of Obama and Romney signs in the yard.  I pulled over to take a picture, but the traffic was heavy so this was the best I could do.  It is sooooooooo funny, though.

Pillow talk?  In the children's section?  Seriously?

 Wisdom (or, uh, something ...) underneath a beer bottle cap.

 I found these disks when I was cleaning out a desk.  Is there ANY purpose for them anymore?

 Belle brought home a coloring page labeled "hens" with a picture of what is clearly a rooster.

 The "hard limits" delineated in Fifty Shades of Grey (reading this series was ... well, a cultural experience for me, I suppose, but I mean, come on ..."

 These t-shirts were sold at the place where I went whitewater rafting in May ... I couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry, so I took a picture ;-)

 Ah, Prestone, the stuff that evidently removes bugs AND tar?  Who knew such a phenomenon existed?

 The card companies are going waaaaaaaaaaay downhill, obviously (although, in the name of full disclosure, I was the recipient of this card)

 My students think they're funny ... okay, finding a random human cardboard cutout (wearing a sombrero, no less) sitting at my desk was pretty funny, but ... surreal.

 I'm sorry, but when the receipt says "Open food" and then puts "sweet pot fries" into the category ... well, I was having visions of brownies.  Not THAT kind of vision ...

 This was on a Burger King kid meal box ...

Hope you got a laugh or two ... and a message about the possibilities of finding humor in everyday life if you are willing to look for it :-)

Lipstick on a Pig

Back when the election was getting hot and heavy, a political cartoon by Glenn McCoy depicting Barack Obama as a mental asylum inmate appeared in my local newspaper. Restrained in a straitjacket, Obama has clearly been writing the word "Sarah" with his foot all over the walls of his padded white room ... in lipstick. The clearly simian bend of McCoy's portrayal (the monkey-like face is overshadowed by the clenched ape foot clutching the tube of lipstick) is obviously a not-so-subtle jab at Obama's race.

So where’s the outcry? I mean, the chorus of dissent over Obama's use of a popular political phrase reached the rafters, but why are cheap shots about the fact that Obama is an African-American allowed to pass without comment? I'm a white female, and my increasing awareness of the double-standard allowing everything that might possibly be seen as anti-woman being blown out of proportion while blatant jabs at African-Americans are evidently fair game is starting to really make me angry.

If anyone hasn't heard about it, Senator Obama said, in reference to McCain's economic policy, "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig." For some reason, this was taken as somehow referring to Sarah Palin and, faster than you can say hypocrisy, the word was out that Obama had made an anti-woman crack.

The phrase, "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig" is clearly another way of saying that, no matter what short-term appearance fixer you put on something ugly, it's still going to be ugly. In other words, you can't change what something is by playing with its outward appearance. A similar phrase involves the inability to make chicken salad out of chicken shit, but I digress.

The fact that John McCain said of Hillary Clinton's health care plan, "I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig" in Iowa last October (that's less than a year ago) is for some reason not getting the same press. There was no feminist outcry last October, and there is very little mention of this in response to the public skewering Obama is currently taking.

A longtime part of used-car dealership jargon, the phrase was, according to Time magazine, first exposed to the public in 1985 when a news station said using its financial surplus to renovate Candlestick Park would be like "putting lipstick on a pig." Since then, the phrase has been used by (in no particular order) Elizabeth Edwards, Dick Cheney, Torie Clark (former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs under Rumsfeld, former communications chief for the Pentagon for a portion of Bush's presidency, and former McCain press secretary), John Edwards, and House Minority Leader John Boehner as well as by John McCain and Barack Obama.

The overblown criticism Obama has taken for his use of a saying that has been used by a variety of people from differing walks of life is just adding to the surreality of this campaign. That direct cracks directed at Obama (a la McCoy's political cartoon) are somehow fair game only add to the bitterness that is starting to really bog me down and look at my country with a cynical eye.

Has anyone else noticed this, or am I just overly sensitive, cynical, or out-and-out wrong?